This Friday, April 29 at 7pm, Skalitzers Contemporary Art Gallery in Berlin (Skalitzer Strasse 43, 10997) presents PUNITIONS, the first solo exhibition in Berlin of the Parisian artist L’ATLAS. One of Europe’s most fascinating urban artists, L’ATLAS works with everything from small block-printed tags to massive, perfectly executed taped street pieces. Xhiller had the good fortune to watch L’ATLAS as he taped and painted his show on site at Skalitzer’s in Kreuzberg.

L’ATLAS studied Arabic calligraphy with classic and modern masters in Morocco, Egypt and Syria and translates the geometric codes of traditional Kufic script into his own aesthetic writing. PUNITIONS (French for punishment) is a style of street art that uses repeated tags to ‘punish’ the surface. The style also recalls punishments taken as a child – yet sees the artist reclaiming the negative void by mastering repetition.

I saw an illustrated book lying amongst boxes of posters for L’ATLAS Berlin show: „Arabic Graffiti“

One of the gallery owners opened it to show me pictures of a huge piece in red done by L’ATLAS in Indonesia in 2005. The artist will sign books during the opening.

It’s Gallery Weekend in Berlin – you can avoid the packs of tourists in Mitte yet remain in the thick of things at the L’ATLAS opening at Skalitzers. And if you can’t make it, I urge you to enjoy scanning through his website, especially his fascinating video documentaries. LATLAS.NET in French and English.